Author: Anonymous

Date: November 27th, 4679

Subject: "Loss Enforcement"

It has been difficult to get used to dragging my rather lethargic body around ever since my out of body experience last week. I never realized how much strain expending energy could bring on me, especially when I know I could be at a time and place purely because I want to be there. And whenever I feel the lightheadedness overcome me, I think back to when I didn't need to feel at all. I'm not sure whether I'm dying, in withdrawal, or if my garden and pile of canned goods is no longer enough to nourish me. Not like I can go outside anymore, I'm pretty sure it stopped snowing and started raining chunks of dry ice. Its like hail in a summer thunderstorm, the constant banging and clacking of frozen chunks striking the roof no different to the downpour of a supercell. But even the worst thunderstorms lasted about half a day at most, this had been going on nonstop for the last few days. If I went outside to check for damage to the roof, my breath would freeze solid in my mouth and I would choke to death, so there's not much I can do but hope nothing stupid happens. Speaking of stupid, why don't I just go back into the mirror and beg to my reflection for charity? Well I have tried, but every time I am simply greeted with the sight of a man in the mirror and the rejection of a glass wall whenever I reach my hand out. That was the case usually.

Yesterday I was similarly rotting like this on my couch with a rubber ball when a soft knock rung out at my front door. I of course refer to the entrance at the ground floor of my residence, which was completely snowed in. Not sure how anyone could have possibly accessed the door from the outside, but clearly we have business if they came all the way to me. To my intrigue and slight disappointment, I found no individual wedged in the space between the door and the wall of snow beyond, but rather a fluffy red rug curled up in a convenient roll. Bringing it inside, I found an envelope taped to one end of the roll containing a note that reads as follows:

"Hi there and Merry Jimmas. I did not know what you wanted for Jimmas, but I knew you had no rug. I found a good rug from a trustworthy supplier, I hope it has reached you in a timely manner. I have not seen a rug since the Great War, this really was a special opportunity for a special someone. Merry Jimmas."

The handwriting was admittedly sharper than mine, but was done in dried ink rather than pencil or pen. No names were given in the note and the off-season mention of Jimmas indicates the sender is either delirious or expected the delivery to take a lot longer than it did. Not sure what specific war was mentioned, but if it was great enough to impact the production of rugs, then I reckon I've ought to be grateful for this unexpected gift. When I finished inspecting the note, I unrolled the rug and laid it in the middle of the room. It was stark red except for a green triangle in the center, which I assumed at first to be a pine tree. A very wide pine tree, that is. The rug had no rag or any way of indicating who made it, so I supposed I would have to take the note's word that the rug came from a good source. The rug was rather comfortable and I was hoping for some sort of novelty here, so I laid on it and fell asleep. I was neither tired nor needed sleep, I was merely sleeping recreationally. 

When I woke up, I had an awful headache, as though my brain was trying to force its way out of my skull. My ears rung a little and I was probably a little out of mind, so I went to melt some snow to hopefully alleviate my condition. My home is not exactly a quality medical facility, but I do have some painkillers that will hopefully starve off the agony as whatever I've come down with either goes away or kills me. I had a potato to keep food on my stomach for the pill, which I took with the melted snow water. That was when I noticed my reflection in the mirror was gone again. Despite my current woes, I did not want to let this opportunity go to waste, so back through the mirror I went with rushed steps. I passed seamlessly through the frame and found myself in roughly the same industrial setting I was in last time. The assembly lines were laid parallel to the mirror frame, robotic hands worked diligently as they filled bowl after bowl with various fluids and whisked them away. 

My reflection was nowhere to be seen, so I walked around the area until I came across a hatch in the floor. For some reason, I made the decision to go into the hatch and was presented with a ladder that led into a dark pit. Pipes and dim lights lined the narrow walls on the decent down into what revealed itself to be a concrete hall that seemed to go on forever both ways. My head still hurt, but the painkiller dimmed the burning sensation enough for me to wander down this hall for a good while. The only light here came from dying bulbs on the ceiling, some on the verse of being burnt out entirely. I was suddenly greeted by a booming voice behind me, "what do you think you're doing? Are you abandoning your post so early?". I turned around and saw the largest man I had ever seen in my life. He looked less like a walrus, more like a whale, and his tremendous frame supported a tiny disfigured head. It looked like a walnut with a pair of beady eyes and a jagged mouth somewhere behind its shell, which had a little bowler hat on top to complete the absurd sight. I simply sighed and said "I'm an intruder who intruded because you left the door open for me", handing him the tag of one of my clothes thinking that if it wasn't mirrored, it would prove my identity. He simply shook his head and said "well that's awfully rude of you to not even give a knock, you should at least loiter in the accounting office instead of here so I'm not the one who has to file an incident report." I asked him where to find the accounting office and he told me I could find it at the end of the hall and down the left. He then walked backwards and disappeared into the shadows where the dying lights don't reach. If he isn't bothering to escort me out, then he really must have a grudge with the financial sector. 

I went down the hall as doors started to show up on either side of me, various offices for individuals such as "Milford Eisenhower, Junior HR" and "Robert Pristine, Treasury Archivist". These names and titles did not raise nor answer any questions. At the very end of the hall, I was greeted with a blank concrete hall where a door was positioned to the left of, denoting an office for "Menagerie, Accounting Clerk". Inside, a bulbous mass of scarlet-red flesh sat behind a desk, hooked up to a great towering computer server with an array of tangled wires that bent in odd ways. The room was oddly well furnished, with a red rug suspiciously similar to my own the centerpiece of dozens of orderly file cabinets. A fireplace was crackling towards the back of the room, filled with logs and discarded files. A finger pulled itself out of the mass seated before me and tapped a speaker a couple times, which boomed with a "I am Menagerie, for I am many. Are you delivering paperwork, voluntarily surrendering your brain, or wasting my time?". I coughed at the frustrated creature and replied "I was told to come here by a large man who's name I never caught.". Menagerie's mass vibrated a little before the speaker spoke out "Mister Cigarette has sent another to waste my time? The sod is being a nuisance because I did not 'misplace' an extra few bucks to his paycheck. Forgive my bluntness, but he is frustrating in the way he endlessly sends proxies to my office to disrupt my most infallible work ethic." This produced a disappointed sigh from me, so I said "what does this company even do? All I know is you folks mess with my mirror", to which Menagerie replied "I dunno, I'm an accountant, the best there's ever been. I held over ninety-eight thousand, three hundred and fifty six jobs across the galaxy at my peak before I fell apart. Two hundred and nine brains I managed to reclaim currently make up my processing power and I will make that two hundred and ten this holiday when I drag myself to the Seimoria system. Boy in red won't know what hit him when I steal his brain and job." 

I do not know who this strange creature is referencing, but evidently the fellow gets into a lot of drama if a discussion about one feud transitioned into the mention of another feud. I do not want any part in whatever this individual is raving about, but I realized the reference to interstellar travel might indicate I could find a way off-world finally. I asked the mass "do you know where to find any spacecraft to leave? My driver seems to have marooned me here". It was a silly lie that Menagerie would probably catch on to if it was as smart as it claimed, but the voice on the speaker told me "the mirrors lead everywhere. Not sure which one you're looking for, I certainly plan on trial and error like I did last time I tried to leave, and the time before that... but if you no longer wish to bask in my glory then I will not hold you up any longer." Clearly this fellow would rather spend time working than walk me out, so I just left the room and went down the hall. Not sure where I was going, probably back to my own mirror. I still have things to pack before I ditch it and I don't feel like gambling with the mirrors today. 

I returned to the ladder I was at and climbed back up, soon finding myself back at the assembly lines. As I got closer to the frame of my mirror however, there was someone on the other end just like me mimicking my movements. This wasn't my usual doppelganger, he refused to cross to my side of the mirror last time I asked, this was someone else. I rasped my fingers on what I found to be glass, the figure doing the same on his end. I tried to force my way in, but I was just making a fool of myself trying to enter the mirror. The man on the other side gave a mocking smile, which greatly displeased me. My head was hurting still and I did not need to deal with this, so I desperately threw a punch at my reflection. Surprisingly, I hit flesh instead of glass and the man on the other side yelped in pain as he clutched his nose. I was able to make my way in as the other man muttered curses at me, something about a broken nose. I could care less, so I shoved him back through the mirror where I came from and watched him wave a fist at me. He tried to barge in, but was met with only the glass between us. "Careful, you'll break it" I said to him as I covered the mirror with a curtain and laid on my new rug to sleep off my headache. What a weird day.

Previous